Recent posts by matt on Kongregate

Topic: Kongregate / R.I.P. Greg

that and the whole “no one expects matt to kill greg” thing in the moderator rap are beginning to make me think that my plans aren’t too secret after all.

Topic: Kongregate / I am kind of pissed off about kreds

i think balneger is referring to the

This ad supports the people who make the games. Kongregate shares ad revenue with developers.

message beneath the square ads on the site. There was some controversy about that at some point with one of the ad providers because they felt it draws attention to the ad in the wrong way or something.

Topic: Kongregate / Staff Works: Complete List.

I can’t count Emily’s various roles on my fingers and toes

use your fingers and the orientation of your palms as representations of binary digits (or a higher base system!). You can easily count up to
(2^1)(2^1)(2^10) = 4096
on two hands, which is about 300 more than you need here.

we’ve been over this.

Topic: Kongregate / Staff Works: Complete List.

matt: Makes pointless forum posts.

aww shucks.

here’s a lemur

?

Topic: Kongregate / Your kreds and you. A fireside chat.

I’m using them to launder money through Kongregate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx6X_VLtfIc

Topic: Technical Support / favourites

We noticed this bug a while back, but it doesn’t seem to be breaking anything and people usually don’t notice! so it’s not really a high priority atm :X it’s logged though.

Topic: Kongregate / Negative Profile Update?!?

it was originally “it ain’t be bold yo” but i had to edit it a few times because i forgot you needed two =’s on both sides.

Topic: Kongregate / Negative Profile Update?!?

Incidentally, is there anyway to disable Textile in posts without padding it out so it’s longer than the textile character limit?

you can use == around your text.
EXAMPLE!:
==*blergh and stuff*==
IS!
*blergh and stuff*

Topic: Kongregate / Room Rivalries

Feed the Ducks hates every other room for not complying with the mandatory 5 metric tons of bread tax.

A tax which famously motivated the Huis Clos Baguette Party. End the fowl imperialism!

Topic: Kongregate / Really cheesy adds on Kongregate

Topic: Kongregate / Guess What

good point!

Topic: Serious Discussion / Proposition 8 in California, 2008

I agree, and specifically addressed that point here:

when people say “discriminate” though, they’re usually using it with that connotation in mind, and they probably really mean something more like ‘it discriminates unfairly’. I think that’s where some of this disagreement and confusion is coming from.

I just don’t believe that Eddie used that notion (“unfair discrimination”) of the word when he made his post, but rather used the more general definition of the word, free from the specific connotations we tend to attach to it.

moreover, even if he did, his post still wouldn’t look like an attempt to justify voting for prop 8. it’s just an attempt to dismiss a particular argument against it. He could very well disagree with prop 8 but want to dismiss arguments against it that he feels are poor.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Proposition 8 in California, 2008

those two kinds are grouped together in that term. this reinforces his point, which i understand to be that people who fail to make a distinction between the different types of discrimination and yet dismiss this proposition solely because it discriminates are failing to recognize that there is a subset of discrimination which is “understandable and the basis of most legal systems”.

There is a clear order of precedence to law; life, liberty and property. A law that in any way restricts a behavior which does not impinge on any of these values clearly violates the spirit of the law, and in a more specific sense is unconstitutional.

This looks like it’s just echoing Phoenix’s post from earlier. Again, it only applies here if the behavior does not threaten those values, which some people seem to feel it does.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Proposition 8 in California, 2008

Your logic would make homosexuality a crime, along with anything else people decide to arbitrarily stamp out.

His reasoning would not make homosexuality or anything else a crime. He’s discussed a particular argument, and hasn’t even given his opinion or an argument for or against whether or not this law should pass or what should or shouldn’t be a crime. It looked to me that he’s saying that arguments against this law on the grounds that it “discriminates”, especially if they use that word specifically, are more acts of demagoguery than legitimate arguments (they attempt to conjure a response based on the perceived connection between something being discriminatory and bad. discrimination is not inherently bad; it happens to have a lot of negative connotations, however). He pointed out that laws in general discriminate based on behavior.

tl;dr: just because something ‘discriminates’ doesn’t mean it’s bad. that doesn’t mean it’s right or good either, but being discriminatory does not necessarily imply that it’s wrong.

when people say “discriminate” though, they’re usually using it with that connotation in mind, and they probably really mean something more like ‘it discriminates unfairly’. I think that’s where some of this disagreement and confusion is coming from.

He may additionally be assuming that this particular discrimination is fair, but that’s not really clear from his post. Even if that is the case however, his post does not affirm or deny the law, it just rejects a particular argument.

I’d love to hear what you’d say if Prop 8 was about outlawing straight marriages.

Hopefully he would respond the same in that case. It would not be inconsistent to do so, and probably wouldn’t contradict any views he had, since again, this is just discussion of a particular form of argument.

The law clearly discriminates, I don’t think anyone would argue about that, but this is largely irrelevant. The question is whether or not it does so in a fair way and for a justifiable reason.

the purpose of law is to protect people and their property. Homosexual acts do no damage to anyone, especially those outside of the consenting adults engaging in said acts. As such, it is clearly absurd to try to legislate against action that does no harm to anyone.

It’s clear given those assumptions, but I think the disagreement from the supporters of the prop arises from feelings that those assumptions are inaccurate. note the people who feel like their children are going to be harmed somehow if society permits same-sex marriages; they clearly don’t agree with the notion that no one is going to be harmed by this.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Poetry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Station_of_th…

Topic: Serious Discussion / Poetry

sounds like your problem is with the people interpreting the art, not the area of art itself.

Topic: Kongregate / Backgrounds For Kongregate Profiles

we accidentally had a way to post myspace layouts on profiles before, with music and backgrounds and everything, and we got rid of it.

JUST SAYIN’

Topic: Serious Discussion / What is the most fundamental science?

a philosophical argument isn’t much different from a proof in group theory, in the sense that you present some basic assumptions/axioms, and derive conclusions. It just happens that the assumptions in some areas of philosophy tend to be more controversial than ‘obvious’ for everyone. philosophical arguments have to be held to some standard of reason, and philosophy students are usually required to at least take an introductory logic course (some study more in-depth logic than many mathematicians do). Philosophy tends to involve a lot more meta-discussion about what is and isn’t obvious, but that’s present to some degree within the mathematical community as well (I guess that’s philosophy of mathematics though, and you can pick where to place that subject). There’s a considerable amount of mathematical work done on demonstrating whether certain axioms are consistent or inconsistent with mathematics though, which is very similar work.

I think your feeling that philosophy can ‘look wrong’ isn’t accurate. You may see some philosophical arguments and disagree with them, but that should just mean that either

a) the argument is invalid, and it’s very poor philosophy, not much different from an incorrect proof in math,

b) you disagree with the rules of inference applied in the argument, which is closely related to whether or not the argument is valid in your assumed logic,

c) you disagree with the assumptions of the argument, which has no necessary bearing on whether or not the argument is “right” or not, or

d) you disagree with the conclusion (but the argument is valid), and so you should disagree with the assumptions if you’d like to be consistent.

imo the distinction between mathematics and philosophy isn’t very strong.

Topic: Kongregate / Forum update: Muting, quoting & reporting [greasemonkey script]

Origami Posted By AlisoneClaire:

matt is now muted! This is the most exciting thing ever.

Then I guess you won’t see me call you a jerk.

Jerk.

Topic: Kongregate / Forum update: Muting, quoting & reporting [greasemonkey script]

oh snap usability.

Topic: Kongregate / I'm want to work at Kong

it’s widely known that asking for a job here demonstrates overzealousness and lowers your chances of being hired.

Topic: Kongregate / You Have To Burn The Rope Still BROKEN

the problems with yhtbtr have been around since before flash 10 was out. we don’t know what causes it, and it seems to be specific to that game, so…!

Topic: Serious Discussion / Proposition 8 in California, 2008

potentially the coincidence that a majority of voters could agree with him for their own reasons. democracy is pretty arbitrary like that!

that’s his explanation for why he’s supporting it, not for why others should.

Topic: Kongregate / game bonus mess up?

hows this

http://www.kongregate.com/pages/help#earning

Topic: Kongregate / game bonus mess up?

i’ve a rating over 2.5 ( right now 2.52 ) and far more then 50 ratings ( ~500 ). But no “Good Game Bonus”. I’m talking about my second game (Walkign Guy).

right, that’s not necessarily a bug.

If your game’s rating rises above 2.5, our system checks to see if it has 50 ratings. If it does, you receive 50 bonus points (“good game bonus”).

If your game didn’t have exactly 50 ratings when it rose above 2.5 stars sometime (in other words, when your game had 50 ratings, the rating was below 2.5 stars) then you don’t get the bonus. If your game passes 50 ratings with a rating less than 2.5 stars, you will never get the good game bonus, even if the game then magically goes to 4.99 from thousands of 5 star votes. It checks if you have exactly 50 ratings, not at least 50 ratings. There is only one opportunity to get the good game bonus, and that is on the 50th vote on your game.

I’ve always thought it would be more intuitive if you got the bonus if your game ever had at least 50 ratings and at least 2.5 stars at the same time. But that’s not how it works.